PrivaZer Discussion Thread

Question for PrivaZer or other system cleaner users

How many passes are enough I leave 3 pass dod in PrivaZer, but I leave 35 gutman pass on ccleaner.

Is one pass enough? I would like to securely erase anything so no data recovery can find a trace of that file.

 

Hello,


@TheCatMan
- PrivaZer cleanups can be scheduled for every day cleanings.

- 1 pass overwriting is enough !

See here :
http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/


and here for the scientific article :
http://privazer.com/overwriting_hard_drive_data.The_great_controversy.pdf

We do recommend to use PrivaZer with only 1 pass. that will prevent from recovery.

 

thx for the links, think ill set them all to 1 pass overwrite, seems to be the general vibe this makes it impossible to recover from

I do use privaZer schedule, but prefer hourly or options like run before shutdown or during startup like cclean. I may have to add commands/ or find alternative options to get that sorted.

 

We will soon add this option to PrivaZer.

 

great news to hear

 

and even more than you can expect TheCatMan...

 

Hello one question about privazer, if i download and read a pfd, or if i write and then i want to delete a word file i use a program called eraser to delete the SINGLE file permanently, my question is, even if i delete the single file, there is the possibility that any traces remain in the OS? i dont know maybe in the microsoft word recent history or in the app data folder of windows etc etc. If i use privazer i would delete even every leaks of data?

Sorry for my english hope u understood what i mean guys, thanks for the answer

 

There are many traces left when you download a file, a video, etc.

1. temporary files may have been created in the browser cache.
2. thus, traces of the file may remain in your free space
3. browsers have a "recently downloaded files history" retaining a file description.

So, I would suggest you to run PrivaZer and remove your internet activity traces, your free space and your file table (MFT or FAT).

 

Nice, thank u for the answer : ) I'll try Privazer very soon
ps. if i read well, i only need 1 Passage on Privazer? Cause on Eraser i read that 3 passages were the best solution

 

Yes 1 pass is enough !

 

New PrivaZer v2.5 with improved large HDD/SDD cleanup
http://privazer.com/download.php

CHANGELOG
- Improved free space cleanup
- Improved support of large HDD/SDD
- Improved restore points management
- Improved drives detection
- Bug fixes
- Improved UI
- Improved German

 

Amazing program, compliments for the nice work guys

One question, my external hard disk is 1.5 terabyte and the free space is almost 1.2 terabyte when i ran privazer it told me that the time left is like 18 hours.

My questions are:
- Is it possible to pause the process in order to clean for example 2 hours at day instead of run the pc 18 hours in a row? Would be a really usefull function if its already present, last question, all the files that have been "normally" deleting during the years, on my external hard disk, will be permanently deleted after a Privazer pass right?

Thank u guys

 

Yes!
Yesterday I let PrivaZer scan for traces in MFT, USN journal and free space on an 1 TB external
drive with 880 GB free space. On this drive, had deleted a lot of (big) files in the last months.

I did a scan with Recuva before and after the cleanup. Before the cleanup, Recuva could find a
great number of previously deleted files, most of them stated as "excellent". I tried to recover
some of these files and it was no problem.

Then I let PrivaZer cleanup the drive. As method, I choosed the Smart cleanup of the free space
with the 1-pass British HMG IS5 (Baseline) standard.

After the cleanup, Recuva found nothing!

So, I checked the "Show 0 byte files" option in Recuva and scanned the drive again. Recuva now
showed me this: http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1020/0k33.jpg

You can see, that Recuva has now found 44.972 files. All of them looked like, and were named like
these on the picture. All were 0 byte files and stated as "Unrecoverable". All these files were
created during the cleanup process. (The ignored files are existing, not deleted files. )

All files, Recuva found before the cleanup, were completely erased and overwritten!
There were no recoverable or recognizable, previously deleted files on the drive!

The result shows, that a Smart cleanup on (my) external drive was more than adequate.


Greets
JoDet

 

Thank you for share your experience Jodet : )

So 1 passage is more than enough, amazing, still wondering if its possible to "pause" or to program the clean up process in order to not run the pc 18 hours in a row. I mean would be amazing if we have the possibility to clean big external hd like little at a time, could be an idea for the future releases?. Hope u understood what i mean thank u guys

 

Don't know if this has come up before, but, here's another cleanup idea: language files.

Lot of programs install various language interface files. One normally uses the system language, or possibly one other one(?).
The problem I see is that these files come in different formats, such as .xml, .txt, .dll, .lng, etc.(?).

How easy would it be to auto-clean these?

 

Hi Donjoe,
General deletions of non-English language files are not desired!
Reasons:
1.) If your native language file is not available, you might choose another language file, that you understand.
2.) Translators need some existing language files helping the translators to properly create their own native language file! Personally I am a translator into Swedish. Often the English grammar is not good, and single English words have several meanings (verb, noun, adjective etc). Therefore I often use the German (Austrian) language file, cause the German grammar is perfect and cannot be misunderstood. Sometimes I look at the Danish or Norwegian language files, cause these neighbour languages are very similar to Swedish. (Dutch is a mixture of English, German & Scandinavian languages, so sometimes I use Dutch, if available!)

Proposal:
Language files might be listed for deletion, but the user should have the right to tick which files he/she wants to keep!

Cheers, sweidre

 

Hello HungryToLearn,

you can wipe portions of your free space with PrivaZer
and other portions the day after.

PrivaZer is a smart cleanup tool which is able to identify regions of your HDD/SSD still needing to be cleaned and regions already cleaned.
Regions already cleaned are not cleaned again, preserving your HDD/SSD and saving a lot of time when wiping the free space !

 

Just to confirm Donjos findings are all correct, it is very important to use an tool that can clean also the MFT, USN journal and free space on any hdd. 1 Pass is more then enough I use the British 1 pass standard.

I tried this 2 days ago, and ran Powerdata recovery trial and also recuva free edition. And am happy to report it did not find anything, any files it did find were empty, Ccleaner has only the option to wipe free space which would take days to run but privazer has more features and including free space and MFT/USN journal, and it does it within minutes compared to hours if not days from ccleaner.

I wish I was using PrivaZer all along, CCleaner is great but PrivaZer really does get it right and it does it smarter and faster !

 

sweidre,

I see I didn't word my question properly. You're absolutely right, this should user's choice, not automatic.
But how hard would it be to implement, given that programs use language files in different formats?

 

You mean its automatic? So if i stop the clean up process at the 10% and i run Privazer the day after the previous 10% would not be scanned or cleaned again? Hope i understood correct, thank u a lot

 

No, the first 10% will be scanned again by PrivaZer.
But as you have already cleaned it, PrivaZer will not find any remaining traces and thus, it will not clean it once more.

 

Hello,

I use the new version of PrivaZer and have Windows 8.1 x64 and when cleaning the system, PrivaZer depends completely on and put Windows lame. Not very trustworthy that program!

 

Hello strykenKN,
We can help.
What is the issue exactly on your PC ?

 

Good Day!
I installed PrivaZer about a week ago on my 2004 Dell 3000 Win XP SP3 at the recent glowing review suggestion of Bob Rankin of "Ask Bob" fame. I've had satisfactory working results so far--including a slightly snappier computer response as Bob mentioned. I do feel safer so far than just using Ccleaner. The only thing that worries me slightly, (and I'm not sure if PrivaZer is responsible) is this:

I regularly run the program "Rkill" from BleepingComputer as a prefix process to running Malwarebytes, HitmanPro, and SuperAntiSpyware as secondary scanners. After Privazer installation and cleaning (with all cleaning options check-marked), the next time I ran Rkill, it scrolled through page after page of driver entries showing no driver signatures. Could Privazer have deleted these, too?

 

Hello,

PrivaZer does not remove driver signatures.
It is not a privacy issue.